User:Wound
- Nickname
- Wound
- Real Name
- Henning Bergmeyer
- lives in
- Germany
- Some details
- Working with POV-Ray since the early nineties
- Experienced Java programmer
- 3D graphics lover
- Experimenter with sound
- Interest in Virtual Reality and Human Machine Communication, as well as Multi Agent Systems
- Working on Grid Computing projects
My POV-Story
The growing media presence of 3d animated graphics and static art derived from it were fascinating me already in the early eighties. I think, one of the most striking experiences according to this was watching the movie "Tron" which totally caught me with its beautiful blend of graphical presentation, visual depth and atmospheric soundscape.
I experimented already on my first pc (equipped with green hercules graphics!) with some rather simple raytracing tools and wrote my own sphere renderer in Turbo Pascal when we reached the subject of analytic geometry in math class. I stumbled upon POV-Ray in an article in a German computer magazine and ordered it on floppy disk from a free- and shareware distributor (pearl agency, I guess).
At first, the scene description language was a little bit hard to swallow, compared to my previous experiences, at least, but much more powerful, as well. When I started my university courses in '95, I gained for the first time regular access to the internet and as one of the first acts updated my POV to the latest version. My first, so to say, e-penpal became a guy from another university and we exchanged "tricks".
Later I had gotten a students job in the graphics and desktop publishing department of an office furniture company and meanwhile working with Adobe software most of the time, more and more introduced my POV-Ray abilities into the development workflows. I have worked there for several years starting with single models for pieces of furniture up to complete office scenes with realistic lighting and decorative objects. Some of these pictures were even put into catalogues, when there was no time to arrange a photo.
I somehow always had problems to use graphic modellers in these development processes. In nearly all cases, I was much faster and more precise by using hand-coded CSG. By the use of well named variables as parameters, a fixed scale of meters as unit and macros for as many reoccurring geometries as possible, I even had a very good reusability and printable specification for the workshops that built the real furniture in the end. It is especially helpful to even automatically deal with simple physics, like levers or things leaning on top of another. Only for objects, with really irregular soft shapes, like the seat cushion and backrest of an office chair, or the shape of a certain coffeepot I have used Wings3d or Blender, which both I really recommend to everyone to try out.
I'm now working in a research institute and at the moment not professionally involved in 3D modelling. But I am still passionate about it.
I'd be glad to share what I've learned during the last 16 years and contribute to the further development of this unequaled piece of great software. On this spot: My personal thanks to all developers!
What a brilliant idea: a Wiki now finally!
Greetings from Cologne
--Wound 19:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)